The village of Messochora, as well as the paternal home of the documentary director, are on the banks of the Acheloos river, in the mountain range of Pindos. The area, however, is flooded by the artificial lake created by the diversion of the river. The documentary unfolds the incredible story of the hostage of the village, the family tragedy of the director himself, and the admirable struggle of the inhabitants of Messochora.
From 1984 to 1989, Costantinos Pittas took a solo journey across Europe and he shot 30,000 black-and-white photographs with a Minox 35mm compact camera. His aim was to capture the human core of the people living on both sides of Europe’s Iron Curtain. His last picture was taken in Berlin, a day after the Wall came down. As he was motivated by the dream for a united Europe, he thought that his project made no sense after the end of the Cold War. He stashed the negatives away in a box and forgot about them. For a good 25 years…
The excavations at Dhaskalio (directed by Colin Renfrew and Michael Boyd of the McDonald Institute, University of Cambridge) have completely transformed our understanding of what was previously seen as a Cycladic enigma. The today uninhabited island of Keros, in Cyclades, Greece, was the site of the world’s earliest maritime sanctuary in the Early Bronze Age, and a thriving center for metal production, providing much evidence for all crucial developments in architecture.
